TTUTA, NPTA happy with stakeholder input in SEA online portal

President of the Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Antonia Tekah-De Freitas and President of the National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) Kevin David say they are satisfied with the Ministry of Education’s effort to involve stakeholders in the creation of its new Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) online portal.

The online portal was launched on Thursday and will give SEA candidates and their parents the option to access unofficial results online rather than go into the schools to collect their results slips.

“We were part of the demonstration,” said David.

"We are satisfied with it, however, we have to present it to parents to ensure they are ok with the transition.”

He said stakeholders advised the ministry to have schools present a review of the portal to parents before they log on to view results, adding schools will be working on that in the coming days before results become available on July 1.

Tekah-De Freitas, in a brief phone interview with Newsday, said, “Stakeholders had input into the development of the portal. We wait to see how it works on the day.”

She said while stakeholders must wait to see how the platform performs, she is confident it will withstand the heavy traffic of users on the day of results.

A statement from the ministry on Thursday said, “For this current academic year, both web-based and paper-based results will be available and the paper-based result slips must be collected for student placement in the secondary school system. It is expected, however, that by 2023, paper-based results will be completely phased out.”